Generation M
by Maraudercat
Summary: A collection of alphabet drabbles set in the Marauder Era. Written for the Alphabet Challenge on HPFC.
1. Alpha

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

A collection of drabbles written for the Alphabet Challenge on HPFC. These are spanning the Marauder Era, which I am defining as Bellatrix Black-Regulus Black, and I'm going to try and cover at least a dozen different characters.

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**Alpha**

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Alpha male. He is an alpha male, calm, confident, suave. So why was it that every time that pretty red-head walked past he lost all ability to speak coherently or walk in a straight line? Sirius was still laughing at him for walking into a pillar two days ago because he had been staring at the way her cloak spilled across her back instead of the path in front of him. Thank Merlin she hadn't been looking back at him.

His Quidditch fame had brought him female admirers aplenty, and every word he said to them had them sighing and fluttering their eyelids. What was so different about Evans, who barely acknowledged his presence, read a book through their last inter-house match where he scored thirteen goals and had even turned down a date to Hogsmeade in front of half the school. Too busy studying, she had said, even though OWLs weren't until next year. He just couldn't understand what her problem was.


	2. Bravo

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

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**Bravo**

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Sirius bit back a laugh as he watched his friend's face contort in almost painful concentration. With his narrow eyes scrunched shut and his well padded cheeks puffed out he looked like a humanoid plimpy. Over his shoulder, Sirius saw James stuff a fist in his mouth to stifle a giggle.

Peter's eyes popped open and he glared at them for a second before flopping morosely on the velvet-curtained bed. "I'm never going to get it. Honestly, I just don't think I'm good enough."

Sirius shrugged and flopped on his own bed, letting James do the jollying up; he'd never been good at dealing with Peter's feelings of inadequacy. Letting the pep talk roll past him he scooped up _A Guide to Transformation_ and flicked through the pages searching for inspiration. After three years of secret study, illegally obtained textbooks and buttering up McGonagall he and James had finally been successful in their animagus transformations. Sirius had at first despised his great bear of a dog—straight off the family crest, a reminder that he could never escape the utterly despicable clan of Black—but quickly got past it after a night of frolicking through the forest alongside James's majestic stag. He couldn't wait to show Moony, though they had agreed to wait until Peter got the transformation too.

If he ever got the transformation, Sirius through wryly as he watched Peter nodding enthusiastically at whatever James was telling him. He was trying, they all knew that, and just yesterday he managed to sprout fur of some sort from his eyebrows.

As the first rays of sun began glancing through the window, Sirius turned to the pair still in deep discussion and said, "Want to give it one more try before we head down and meet him?"

The pair looked up and James gave Pete an encouraging nudge before stepping back to give him room. The smaller boy took several deep breaths and closed his eyes, muttering under his breath as he willed himself to change.

An astonished gasp several minutes later woke Sirius from his half-doze. He lifted his head from the book it was resting on to see Peter delightedly waving his hand above his head. His brown, furry, clawed hand.

"Bravo!" exclaimed James from behind as he clapped their triumphantly grinning friend on the shoulder.

"Now, can you change it back, or do we need to go to Madam Pomfrey?"


	3. Charlie

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

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**Charlie**

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"Oh shut up, she does not!"

"She does, and you'd better watch out 'cause she seemed pretty determined."

"Oh come on, she's what, twelve?"

"And seeeeeeriously in looooooove with you."

Lily turned the corner in time to see Remus groan into his hands while the rest of the boys fell about laughing. Black made finger glasses about his eyes and forced his teeth out over his lip while batting his eyelids at Potter, who slouched his shoulders and responded with Remus's over-exaggerated finger combing gesture, and Lily realised they were talking about Charlie Norris.

The unfortunately featured second-year had harboured a crush on Remus since April of last year. Lily had noticed his initials emblazoned in a heart on the edge of her Potions notes during a tutoring session last week, though she had decided not to get involved. After all, Remus was a decent guy and probably wouldn't be nasty in turning her down if he ever found out, unlike some fourteen-year-old toe-rags she could name.

Another howl of laughter interrupted her thoughts, and Peter clutched the wall, gasping for breath as Remus and Black tussled over a piece of parchment charmed with a scarlet bow.

"Don't you dare Black!" Remus gasped as he tried to wrench the note from his grasp while Potter egged them on.

"But Moony, love letters are all the rage this year, right James?"

Potter grinned his agreement and Lily felt a wave of anger well up. Three times in the last fortnight her breakfast had been interrupted by _his_ love letters. The first, delivered by a snowy white owl had contained some of the worst poetry she had ever read, where the final line, a request for a date to Hogsmeade, hadn't even come close to rhyming. The second, borne by a flock of conjured doves three days later contained a heart-shaped necklace which she had thrown at him across the table and stormed off to class. And four days ago, the third, which had burst into song the moment she touched it, drowning out her attempts to yell at him with an appallingly re-worded Celestina Warbeck ballad to the amusement of the rest of the school.

As she was joined by Mary and Alice, who started laughing at the show, the classroom door opened and a stream of students poured out. Before anyone could stop him, Potter snatched the note from Black's fist and dropped it into the book bag on the shoulder of a familiar curly-haired figure as she hurried past.

A look of dawning horror spread over Remus's face as he realised what had happened just as Charlie turned the corner in the middle of her pack of friends, and Lily hurried past them into the classroom, determined to sit as far away as possible from the brewing fight.


	4. Delta

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

Ack, real life :/

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**Delta**

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"All right, now you just take the delta function of the…what?"

Andromeda blinked and re-focused on the indulgently grinning face looking down at her from his perch on the edge of her desk as he tapped his fingers against her half-finished arithmancy assignment.

"Oh, sorry Ted. I just-"

"You just got distracted by my floppy fringe again. I know, I'm simply too irresistible."

He leaned over to kiss her forehead and she waited until he was precariously balanced on the lip of the desk before shoving him away. They both laughed as he scrambled for a hand-hold on the rough wooden edge, worn from a thousand students' studying, until she spotted the boy watching them over Ted's shoulder, mouth agape.

She sighed; how could she have been so careless to think that they wouldn't be seen in such a public place as the library, even if it was an hour past curfew for the younger students. Of course silly rules like that had never stopped her cousin from doing whatever he wanted, though she wondered how he had managed to sneak in unseen.

Even at twelve, Sirius was already showing signs of the classic Black features. His dark hair fell in identical waves to Bella's and both Andromeda and her sisters shared with him the razor-blade cheekbones and pale blue-grey eyes. His fair complexion was better suited to Gryffindor's scarlet and gold than the silver and green the rest of the family wore, though the bemused gaping expression was traditionally not part of the family look.

Ted glanced between them, then narrowed his eyes in the direction of a muffled giggle from the seemingly empty air several feet to her cousin's left. "I think I might head for bed, Head Girl Black. I will leave the care of this miscreant curfew breaker in your hands, and I advise any other students nearby who should be in bed to return there. Immediately."

With a wink he sauntered off, followed by a smothered squeal and three sets of less than silent footsteps. Andromeda shook her head, half amused, half frustrated and took a deep breath, trying to think of a way to explain to her cousin so that he wouldn't tell the entire school by breakfast.


	5. Echo

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR. **

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**Echo**

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The raucous laughter and running footsteps echoed throughout the house, bringing unwanted memories of the past to mind. Happy Christmas mornings where they would open their gifts together before racing outside to build their annual snow fort in the back garden while Kreacher and Nibbs prepared breakfast. Sometimes Drommy and Bella would join them before they finished, using their wands to shape icy crenellations and gargoyles on top of their clumsily constructed wall. Then they would pile up snowballs and wait for Cissa or one of the elves to call them inside, their frame outlined in the open doorway as a perfect target.

Afterwards came lunch, steaming roast turkey and vegetables, then the afternoon to dress for the annual Black family Christmas party where all the proper pureblood families came together in the magically expanded ballroom. The adults talked and danced while the children played together, laughing and running about the ancient house whenever they escaped their parents' watchful eyes.

But this year it was all so different, so wrong. At fifteen he was considered less one of the children and more one of the adults, especially now that he was the Black heir. He knew that right now he should be down in the ballroom making small talk with Abraxas Malfoy and Titus Nott, Marcell Rosier and Jerrad Rowle, Bella and her husband Rodolphus.

While he and Sirius hadn't agreed on things for a long time, at least in previous years he had been able to hide in the shadows of his outrageous Gryffindor brother whose ignorant claims and ideological arguments were blamed on the alcoholic punch he swiped and swigged with careless abandon.

His brother had been drunk then too, the night that he left. Just swaggered into Regulus's room, a half-finished bottle of father's good wine clutched in his trembling fingers as he told his little brother that he was done with the House of Black. Regulus hadn't believed him, hadn't thought it was real until mother blasted his name off the family tree in a fit of pique. And now everyone expected Regulus Black to step up in his place, heir to the greatest of the pureblood houses, Slytherin prefect and Quidditch star and otherwise terrified little boy who just wanted his brother to come tell him that the bad dream was over.

The sound of his mother's voice calling for him brought him to his senses. For one second he thought about disobeying, running away and hiding, but he wasn't that brave. Not like Sirius. Shakily he rose from the bed and swiped away the tears from his cheeks as he slunk from his room to join the party.


	6. Foxtrot

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

It appears I am writing again.

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**Foxtrot**

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She had always preferred the foxtrot to the other dances they had been drilled in from early childhood. The graceful quick movements and sudden tempo changes so perfectly mirrored her character that sometimes she felt her soul danced along with her body. She had never been one for the waltz, those slow, careful, controlled motions were more suited to Cissa who loved the rules and requirements of being a pureblood lady. Drommy didn't really have a dance; she was gracefully perfect at all forms of course and always had a good partner in Lucius, but she hated social events with a passion and did what she could to politely avoid them. Bella had always loved her sister's beautiful wild streak that she carefully buried deep below layers of cynicism and carefully rehearsed responses.

But for Bella, sudden and quick was the only way she had ever known. When she duelled she felt the tempo of the music course through her, the bend and sway, the quick twist of her body and her wand as one. It was why she was so quick to learn the old magics that Rodolphus and the Master were teaching her, so much more interesting than her NEWT classes that she was forced to suffer through. The first time she had made a man bend to her will and scream in pain she had revelled in the music, the song in her heart that she made him dance to. Swift and sudden, delicate and powerful. It gave her the conduit for her emotions like nothing else, a way to channel the most powerful of gifts. There was no music like the song of another person's life in your hands.


	7. Golf

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

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**Golf**

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"But what is the point?"

Remus sighed and shook his head, not bothering to try and explain the muggle sport of golf for a third time. He didn't much care for the game anyway, though his Grandfather McManus played it religiously every second Saturday and had dragged Remus along a few times last summer now that he was a teenager and therefore 'old enough to appreciate these things'. Of course none of Grandfather's friends had known about magic, which made for boring conversations about his imaginary school.

Now Remus focused on directing Sirius and James's stares away from the men in vests swinging clubs and back to the tent they were supposed to be helping Peter erect muggle-style.

"Once they clear out, it'll make for a good game of night Quidditch," James murmured with a grin as he scooped up a handful of pegs and held them uncertainly, staring at the mound of wriggling cloth which Sirius had just dumped on Pete, trying to divine where they were supposed to go.

After half an hour of fun wrestling and Sirius accidentally getting whacked in the foot with the mallet, Remus sent Peter and Sirius to get firewood while he corralled James into following his instructions. Less than a minute after they hammered in the last peg and Pete and Sirius returned with their third armful of branches the rain that had been threatening all afternoon began, chasing away the last of the golfers on the far side of the fence. They lingered over plates of soggy beans on soggier toast cooked over the tiny fire just outside the tent's flap until the first stars showed through the thinning clouds.

As they grabbed their brooms and raced for the wide flat of the golf course lit by the shaky globs of light at their wand-tips Remus took a moment to glare at the waxing moon, peeking through the clouds, taunting him.

"Hurry up Moony!"

With a shake of his head—there was nothing he could do about it—he followed after his trio of friends.


	8. Hotel

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR. **

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**Hotel**

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The hotel walls were plain, ordinary white. A single still life, a bowl of ordinary red apples and green pears added colour to the otherwise plain ordinary room. Vernon caught her eye across the room where he was manhandling the plain brown trunks full of sensible ordinary clothes towards the foot of the bed.

Vernon had chosen their honeymoon location, a small hotel overlooking the Ipswich waterfront. There were two art galleries and a small cinema nearby, and they would take their breakfast while watching the passage of a variety of boats. At first they had thought to go overseas but Vernon's work commitments had put an end to that. He was a junior executive after all and was required at an investor's meeting in five days time, cutting their honeymoon rather short.

Petunia was looking forward to returning to their house in Surrey. It was larger than either of the houses she grew up in, neat and tidy and wonderfully plain, with a small orderly garden and a perfectly trimmed lawn. She would spend her days keeping it that way, she supposed, now that she was married and no longer had to work. Eventually she would raise their children, their perfectly normal children.

A boy and a girl, she had decided, two or three years apart. Her son would be strong and brave and polite and handsome; he would play rugby with his friends and he would do well at school and would follow his father into Grunnings when the time came.

Her daughter would be competent and bright and proper. She would help her mother with the cooking and the gardening, she would find a good man to love and marry, and Petunia would help her make her own wedding dress. Both children would be happy and loving and completely normal, and she would see to it that they wanted for nothing.

She smiled at her husband as he seated himself on the bed beside her, making it dip a little as he shifted to kiss her cheek. Life was going to be wonderfully, ordinarily perfect from now on.


	9. India

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.**

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**India**

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The robes were Indian silk, the sky-blue and gold brocade cascading down her shoulders like a waterfall in Spring. Her hair was dressed with a dainty tiara of gold and periwinkle forget-me-nots, pale curls bouncing as she twirled to the music. Twirled in the arms of that rabbit-faced nobody while he was stuck escorting her cow of a sister.

It was not the first time Lucius wished the younger Black girls had been born in the reverse order. Then he would be betrothed to Narcissa, all beauty and grace, not Andromeda, all superior and strange. How could she could be a proper wife to him when she associated with Hufflepuffs and halfbloods, when she routinely ignored him, or insulted him, when she actively pursued unwomanly activities.

Once they were married she would submit to him, though, one way or another. Rodolphus had introduced him to _him_ last summer, who said he would teach Lucius once he was of age. One more year and he would learn all he needed, all he wanted.

But he would never have all he wanted, not when she was dancing in the arms of another man.


	10. Juliet

**DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR. **

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**Juliet**

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"This is BRILLIANT!"

Peter grinned as Sirius flipped through their assigned reading for muggle-studies, trying to find more lines to torture their friend.

"Here's one," he said, quoting with an arm dramatically outstretched from his position sprawled on his back across Moony's bed.

"He that is stricken blind cannot forget; the precious treasure of his eyesight lost."

Peter saw Moony, who had actually read the thing before, wince and look up from rummaging through his battered trunk.

"But there he's talking about Rosalind. A better one would be 'She doth teach the torches to burn bright, it seems she hangs upon the cheek of night. Like a rich jewel-OW!"

Peter found his own laugh cut off by a second pillow from the bed nearest the door, followed by a disgruntled snort from behind the half-drawn curtains.

"Ah Prongs, stop sulking," Sirius called across the room with his usual grin. Peter noticed he hadn't got a pillow thrown at him; maybe because James knew Sirius would throw it back. "I'm sure she'll forgive you eventually. Maybe even before we finish school. Hey, if we quote these while she's nearby she might-"

"Don't you dare, any of you!" The face that appeared between the plush scarlet drapes looked stricken, his glasses askew and eyes slightly red, and for a moment Peter thought that his friend might actually be as in love with her as he said he was. Then Sirius snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "Wait, I've got it! 'What's in a name? That which we call a Lily by any other name would smell as sweet."

When he saw Prongs' mouth twitch in a smile at that Peter knew that it was safe, and was still all just a game.


End file.
